GOP floats $2 billion a week in cuts

House Republicans plan to pass a two-week stopgap spending bill next week that would keep the government running past March 4 at reduced levels, GOP aides told POLITICO Wednesday.

The measure comes on the heels of last week’s seven-month appropriation bill that would have slashed $61 billion from federal accounts but has no chance of passage in the Senate.

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Republican aides say the cuts in the two-week spending bill would be proportional — or pro-rated — to reflect the levels in the first measure. That means cutting about $4 billion over two weeks. The plan is tentative and the contours of the measure are still being crafted.

It’s House Republicans’ opening bid in a war of attrition that pits their promise to slash spending against Senate Democrats’ refusal to allow any cuts on a short-term bill. If no one backs down by March 4, the government will shut down. House Republicans want to leave the hot potato in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s hands.

Reid’s office released a statement Wednesday afternoon in response to the proposal, calling it another non-starter.

“The Republicans’ so-called compromise is nothing more than the same extreme package the House already handed the Senate, just with a different bow,” Reid spokesman Jon Summers said. “This isn’t a compromise, it’s a hardening of their original position. This bill would simply be a two-week version of the reckless measure the House passed last weekend. It would impose the same spending levels in the short term as their initial proposal does in the long term, and it isn’t going to fool anyone.”

GOP aides say the goal is to send Reid a bill that he can’t turn down, either because of the threat of a shutdown or because enough of his politically vulnerable Democrats support the Republican-written measure.

According to a Democrat, a Boehner aide told Senate leadership that House Republicans won’t budge on spending cuts worth $61B over seven months, nor will they accept any spending over the pro-rated version they plan to offer next week. The Boehner aide reportedly told Senate leadership that anything short of that would lead to a shutdown, since the tea party Republicans expect top Republicans to stand firm on the cuts.

GOP leadership aides in the House denied that they warned of a government shutdown, saying that they only want to cut spending.

“Republicans staff told Sen. Reid staff that we will move a short-term [continuing resolution] that cuts spending, and that it’s up to Sen. Reid to tell Americans what - if anything - he’s willing to cut,” Michael Steel, a Boehner spokesman, said. “At this point, the House has done its work by passing a CR, and the Senate has done nothing.”

Other than issuing a veto threat on the first Republican-written bill, President Barack Obama has kept his distance from a combustible situation that threatens to do damage to anyone standing in the vicinity of a shutdown.

Recognizing the high stakes and the limited time window, House aides acknowledge that the process for considering the two-week funding bill is not likely to allow for amendments — and certainly won’t provide for the kind of free-wheeling debate the House engaged in last week.

That may or may not cause consternation with rank-and-file Republicans, but it will surely bring criticism from Democrats that GOP leaders aren’t living up to the spirit of their promise to give open consideration to legislation.

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CORRECTION: Corrected by: Alex Byers @ 02/23/2011 04:21 PM
Correction: This story was updated to clarify that the planned $2 billion in cuts is for each week, for a total of $4 billion.
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